Tuesday, 28 March 2017

Casual racism is an interesting term. It sounds like something you’d do on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

“I’m going to ring Bazza, Thomo and Dougie and see if they’re up for creating some hatred down the beach.”“It's a beautiful day for it, just make sure you cover up.”

Once you start defining racism, you have to follow through and finish the job.

If there's casual racism, then there must also be permanent part time racism. The later would cover your right wing conservatives within the larger political parties. It’s a sort of closeted racism or what I call iceberg racism.

“Can we get two Sauvignon Blanc and a Latte, please?”“I’m not the waiter. I'm a member.”“You’re a member... here?”

These people are full-time racists, but they know they can't let that slip out in public, so they temper their racist ways to all but their most trusted allies. They are still permanent racists, but they only let their racism show part time - hence, permanent part-time.

Full-time racists are racist all the time and proud of it. They cover those you’d expect - Pauline Hanson, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage.

These populists are suddenly in vogue, riding a wave of nationalism and they don’t even try to hide their view that people who are different to them are untrustworthy, take jobs away and reduce the entire country's standard of living.

Australia’s Pauline Hanson tripped into power twenty years ago. At the time she warned us our country was about to be swamped by Asians. Now she’s back and warning us we’re about to be swamped by Muslims. If we’re ever swamped by Asian Muslims, her head’s going to implode.

Pauline Hanson and others are a throwback to a simpler time - a time when our grandparents were schooled to believe white is right. Many of our current grandparents fall into the category of full-time racists, and we often give their generation a free pass and excuse their behaviour with a myriad of platitudes.

“They're from a different time.” “They had the war that influenced them,” or “She/He doesn’t understand what She/He is saying.”

All of this, of course, is bullshit. The truth is Nanna doesn’t have long to live, and it’s easier to wait her out than retrain her.

When I was fifteen, my family rented a beach house in beautiful, peaceful Hawk’s Nest. It's one of the most perfect beaches on New South Wales central coast. When we arrived, we checked out the rental to see what we had, what the various rooms were like and so on. Nanna went out the back and was gone less than thirty seconds. When she returned, she loudly declared there were people next door. Although, people wasn’t the word she used. I'd never heard the word she used, except in the context of the name of Australian's favourite family block of tasty cheese.

My Nan was such a full-time racist she eventually qualified for racist long service leave. We sent her to Vietnam. When she returned and tried on her racist ways, like announcing in a crowded place, “We might as well be in Vietnam,” we were able to respond with, “No, Nan, you visited Vietnam, remember? This is nothing like that - this is Sydney, and that makes every person here Australian."

About Me

Scott Norton Taylor - I worked for Fremantlemedia for many years running Neighbours and Home and Away script Departments, I set up drama shows in Indonesia, Poland and Russia and am now working on projects in Australia.